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The KC-135, fully loaded with 31,000 gallons of fuel, destroyed several homes in Scales’ African-American neighborhood near 20th and Piatt.

Thirty people died.

He was 9.

“It’s something I’ll never forget.”

A few dozen people — many children, like Scales, when the plane crashed — gathered at Piatt Memorial Park on Wednesday afternoon to observe the crash’s 48th anniversary.

Amid prayers and memories shared by survivors and the descendants of those killed, Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau told the crowd the crash remains the worst non-natural disaster in Kansas history.

“Who expects to be home on a Saturday morning, watching cartoons and have a plane fall from the sky?” said Faust-Goudeau, echoing those who remember that episodes of Mighty Mouse and Casper the Friendly Ghost were on TV at 9:30 a.m. when a mechanical failure caused the jet to go down.

“This is part of our history, a part of Kansas history,” she said.

Darell Woodard’s first girlfriend, Brenda Dunn, was among the dead that chilly January morning. He was 7 and engrossed in cartoons before the impact.

As a kid, he used to search for pieces of the jet, he said. A few years ago he found a half-dollar-sized shard he fitted with a chain to wear around his neck.